From the Valley Jazz Share’s website: “The trio known as aRT – akLaff, Robinson, Thayer – is a highly adventurous group of creative minds that has been performing new and startling music since 1988. aRThas appeared at jazz festivals, art galleries, and scientific conferences here and abroad, and has produced collaborative projects with sculptor Rob Fisher and choreographer LaRue Allen. aRT’s 1991 “Flying Carpet” multimedia performance at the Knitting Factory premiered a new, improvisational method of interactively intermixing art/performance video streams. This idea was expanded upon in 1996 for the Studio for Creative Inquiry in Pittsburgh, where their planetarium performance “Night of the Living Cell” combined imagery of cell life with real-time video feed of the performers – in 3D! “The result,” The Wall Street Journal reported at the time, “could become a new form of artistic experience.” In 1997, aRT was selected to be the closing act for the Sun Ra Festival in New York. In 2020, aRT performed in Philadelphia for the Institute of Contemporary Art’s exhibition on Milford Graves, with whom aRT had been working toward a collaborative music/science project. As Mr. Graves was not well enough to perform, he graciously provided a set of his TonoRhythmology/Sonification recordings – which he created by translating his own physiological data into musical sound — along with his blessing to incorporate them into the performance. This provided a means by which he could, in a way, be present and part of the music… an idea that aRT hopes to expand on in future performances. Most recently, aRT mounted a major multimedia concert event at Roulette, “Higher Powers,” in honor of painter Richard M. Powers’ 2021 centennial.”

Recorded live at Holyoke Media June 20, 2024